The past week brought two celebrations: Stanley celebrated his 87th birthday on Tuesday and followed it with three nights of shows in Nashville including Friday and Saturday nights at the Opry. And Saturday night, the Opry celebrated McReynolds' 50th anniversary of becoming an Opry member.

Click on the photo above to see a gallery of some of the performers on Saturday night's Opry, which also included Lorrie Morgan.

CLICK THE PHOTO ABOVE for a photo gallery of Ernest Tubb over the years. Here, Tubb, center, plays with his band on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium during the Grand Ole Opry Show Feb. 7, 1953 (Don Cravens/The Tennessean). Click on the image to see more photos of Ernest Tubb.

The greatest surgery in country music history was the botched tonsillectomy that created Ernest Tubb.

Well, it didn’t create Tubb the person: Ernest Dale Tubb was born exactly 100 years ago, on Feb. 9, 1914, in a town called Crisp, Texas, that no longer exists and isn’t often-mourned.

Tubb, who died in 1984 at age 70, is remembered every day, though. He was a pioneering force in the rollicking form of country music we call “honky-tonk,” and the founder of the historic Lower Broadway record shop that bears his name and sells his music. And the leader of one of the greatest bands in country music history, and many other things.

But none of Tubb’s myriad contributions would have been possible if the tonsil surgery had gone better, back in the latter part of 1939.

After a seven-year hiatus, neo-bluegrass trio Nickel Creek has announced a reunion - and they'll play their first concert since 2007 at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.

On Monday, the trio of Chris Thile and Sara and Sean Watkins shared a new song (off a "forthcoming album") and a handful of 2014 tour dates, kicking off with a two-night stand at the Ryman on April 18-19.

The Ryman was also where the band played its farewell concert in 2007.

Tickets are $39.50 - $49.50 and go on sale at 10 a.m. Fri., February 7 at 10 a.m. via Ticketmaster, the Ryman box office, ryman.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000.

Click for a photo gallery: Members of Little Big Town share a laugh as they talk to the media at the Nashville Grammy Nominees party Sunday in Nashville. (photo: George Walker IV / The Tennessean)

Little Big Town

Nominated for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for “Your Side of the Bed”

Today, the members of Little Big Town will take their seats at the 56th annual Grammy Awards and — like last year — start convincing themselves they aren’t going to win.

Last year — like this year — they were nominated for best country duo/group performance. “Pontoon,” the breakout single from their platinum-selling album “Tornado,” was nominated in the category.

“We try not to think about it,” said Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild. “We sat back there … and you want it to happen because you want a Grammy really, really bad, but you sit there and I try to talk myself down.

“Like, ‘Oh, it’s not going to happen.’ And then they said ‘Pontoon’ and we went crazy.”

Randy Scruggs, son of bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs, stands near a statue of his father at the Earl Scruggs Center in honor of his father during a tour that took place after the Earl Scruggs Center dedication ceremony at Central United Methodist Church on Saturday, Jan. 11, 2014 in Shelby, N.C. (photo: Associated Press / The Star, Ben Earp)

In his 88 years, Earl Scruggs found a new way to play the banjo, an instrument that was clattering toward antiquity until he gave it a new and eloquent voice.

In so doing, Scruggs helped create a new form of country music now recognized as “bluegrass,” he inspired thousands of players and millions of songs and he altered the course of American popular music.

Now, a year and 10 months after his death, Scruggs and his singular legacy are helping to rejuvenate the once-decaying uptown square in Shelby, N.C., the town where he worked making sewing thread in the Lily Mill, and where he left in 1945 to head west — first to Knoxville, then to Nashville — to fulfill his destiny.

Country newcomer Kacey Musgraves and multiplatinum-selling country crossover Taylor Swift emerged as the top Nashville nominees when the Recording Academy announced nominations for its 56th annual Grammy Awards on Friday night, many of which were revealed during a live television concert on CBS. Jay Z tops overall nominations with nine.

Nashville’s Musgraves and Swift each had four nominations. They also tied for the top nominee for November’s CMA Awards.

LL Cool J hosted the show, which took place in Nashville in 2012 but this year returned to Los Angeles. Friday night’s show featured Swift and fellow Nashvillians Keith Urban and Ed Sheeran.

A new book, album and tour just aren’t enough to keep bluegrass artist Ricky Skaggs busy these days: Skaggs has been announced as the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s 2013 artist-in-residence. He will play two shows, scheduled for 7 p.m. Nov. 18 and 19, and his concerts will be the first public offerings in the new CMA Theater, part of the museum’s current expansion.

“Getting to be the very first artist to get to sing in that new building that we were hoping for is a special treat,” Skaggs said of the new theater. “I was very honored in every direction.”

Skaggs says his busy schedule is limiting his run in the space to two days but that he’s determined to make it as memorable as possible. He’s invited artists he respects and admires to join him. Those include Emmylou Harris, Brad Paisley, Peter Frampton, Gordon Kennedy and The Whites, who will appear with him at the country-themed first show, and Alison Krauss, Bruce Hornsby, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill and Del McCoury on the bluegrass-flavored second show.

“It’s just going to be a really sweet family time,” Skaggs says. “Every one of these artists are people that are really special to me and it’s great to get to share these two nights with people I really love. To get to do it for the people of Nashville and to be the break-in artist for the new building, it’s so special. I can’t hardly believe that it’s happening.”